Elizabeth Edwards, starring at the kickoff event of San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade, came out in support of legalized same-sex marriage Sunday -- taking a position that she acknowledged is at odds with her husband, presidential candidate John Edwards.

Edwards' comments came after her keynote address before a standing-room-only breakfast attended by 300 people at the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, a key organization in the powerful gay political base in San Francisco.

The appearance by the candidate's wife -- witnessed by many local politicians, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, District Attorney Kamala Harris and City Attorney Dennis Herrera -- was hailed as a milestone in the 30-year history of the Gay Pride event, which had never been visited by a major presidential candidate or spouse.

California's presidential primary is Feb. 5, making it one of the earliest races in the country and a frequent stop for candidates and their families.

Edwards' embrace of same-sex marriage puts her in a position that differs markedly from her husband, the former North Carolina senator. Edwards said her husband, though having a "deeply held belief against any form of discrimination," supports gay civil unions, but does not support gay marriage.

"John has been pretty clear about it, that he is very conflicted," she said. "That's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town. I think honestly he's on a road that a lot of people in this country are on. ... They're struggling with this. Most of the gay and lesbian people I know ... have seen their friends and family walking down that same road.

"It's frustrating, I know," she added, "but it's a long distance from where we are now to the pews of a Southern Baptist church. So, John's been as honest as he can about that."

Edwards said she has come to the conclusion that the marriage of another couple "makes no difference to me," just as it would make no difference in her opinion of a neighbor if he painted his house a different color.

"If he's pleasant to me on the street, if his children don't throw things in my yard, then I'm happy," she said. "It seems to me we're making issues of things that honestly ... don't matter."

Many at the breakfast where Edwards was enthusiastically received noted the stark differences between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on issues that matter to gay and lesbian voters.

All Democratic candidates support the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay people in the military, while none of the Republican candidates said they would support such a change.

All Democrats also support a measure recently passed in New Hampshire that allows civil unions. But the leading candidates -- Edwards, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -- remain opposed to same sex marriage.

Only Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio, and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska support same-sex marriage, but they are considered to have virtually no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

In 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of the state law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The state Supreme Court has barred such marriages until it issues a final decision in the case. That decision is still pending.

Mike Erickson stood with his two young daughters in the heart of Boystown on Sunday, enjoying the Gay Pride Parade for the first time-even though his brother had come out to the family more than 10 years ago.

Erickson, 49, of Evergreen Park, and his daughters, Ceili, 12, and Phoebe, 10, watched the dancers and marchers and floats, and wandered through the friendly crowd with grins of appreciation.

"I haven't seen anything yet that I wouldn't want them to be exposed to," said Erickson, as a float with bare-chested men dancing in tight shorts cruised by. "If you want to see a wild parade, come down to the South Side St. Patrick's parade."

"It's fun," Phoebe said of her day at Pride.

The girls' grins seemed to have as much to do with having a fun day in Chicago with their uncle Jon as anything else. They stayed with their dad at their uncle's place the night before, watching movies and visiting.

Jon Erickson, who would only say he is not yet 50 when asked his age, has lived in the Boystown area for about 15 years. He said Sunday that he was proud to have his nieces and brother there with him amid a crowd that city officials estimated 450,000.

"It's really more than a family thing," Jon Erickson said of having his nieces attend Pride. "Their first question was, 'What does the rainbow flag mean?' And I told them how everyone's welcome. And that gay people are everywhere. So, to have my family join me along with my larger family is what the Pride Parade is all about."

Police and organizers said Sunday afternoon that they knew of no major problems or disturbances during the parade, which began at about noon, wending north on Halsted Street from Belmont and back south on Broadway.

There were 250 registered entries for the 38th annual event-floats, decorated vehicles, and marching groups-according to parade coordinator Richard Pfeiffer.

Former NBA center Jon Amaechi, who retired in 2004 after five seasons in the league and came out earlier this year in an autobiography titled "Man in the Middle," was the parade's grand marshal. The theme of the parade was "United for Equality."

Mike Erickson had always talked about attending the Pride Parade with his brother, but just never got around to it. He's glad that he did this year.

"I do things with my other brothers," he said. "This is a chance to do something with him, in his neighborhood." Elsewhere on the parade route, Taysha Bronaugh, 34, was enjoying the sights with her girlfriend, Demetria Jamison, 26.

"I come out here to show support," said Jamison. "And get support. I love the parade."

Religious groups lead New York gay pride parade
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 24, 2007

NEW YORK: Religious groups including Christians, Jews and Buddhists led the New York gay pride parade, lending gravity to the often outrageous event that celebrates the night patrons of a gay bar in Manhattan resisted a police raid.

"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda I believe are blaspheming God's name."

Kleinbaum, who heads the world's largest predominantly gay synagogue, and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the parade's grand marshals Sunday, waving from his-and-hers convertibles.

The march took place days after the New York State Assembly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, which Governor Eliot Spitzer supports. Although the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Senate any time soon, parade-goers said they were cheered by the Assembly's action.

"This is one very important step toward full equality for all New Yorkers," Kleinbaum said.

As in past years, there was exhibitionism on display as the parade inched down Fifth Avenue and into Greenwich Village. Revelers gyrated in bikini briefs and marched in spike heels.

But the placement of the religious organizations near the head of the march — ahead of AIDS service groups and political advocacy groups — gave them unaccustomed prominence.

A Buddhist group carried signs that said "Construct Dignity in Your Heart" and "Don't Block Your Buddha."

The gay Roman Catholic group Dignity had a float and a giant rainbow flag. Jeff Stone, secretary of the New York chapter, said he was hopeful that the church would someday change its stance opposing homosexuality.

"We see that the opinion of ordinary Catholics is changing," he said. "Eventually what happens at the grass roots percolates up in the church."

Toni Cinanni of Perth, Australia, said she was surprised at the prominence of the church groups.

"I thought the religious groups had hijacked the parade," she said. "I couldn't put it together, religion and sexuality."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg marched with officials including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is one of the most prominent openly gay elected officials in the United States.

There were contingents of gay police officers and firefighters as well as ethnic gay groups including South Asians, Haitians and American Indians.

The annual gay pride parade, one of dozens that takes place around the world, commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots when patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against a police raid.

In California, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, kicked off San Francisco's annual gay pride parade Sunday by splitting with her husband over support for legalized gay marriage.

"I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me," Mrs. Edwards said at a news conference before the parade started. "I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage."

She made the remark almost offhandedly in answering a question from reporters after she delivered a standard campaign speech during a breakfast hosted by a local political organization.

She conceded her support puts her at odds with her husband, a former senator from North Carolina who she said supports civil unions among gay couples — but not same-sex marriages.

"John has been pretty clear about it, that he is very conflicted," she said. "He has a deeply held belief against any form of discrimination, but that's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town."

No serious presidential candidate for the 2008 election from either major political party has publicly supported gay marriage.

The New York Times
June 25, 2007
The Empire Zone
Personal Victory for Assemblyman on Gay Marriage
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

ALBANY — His sister Rosie is the celebrity in the family. (You may have caught her in “A League of Their Own” or on “The View.”) But Daniel J. O’Donnell, a Manhattan assemblyman, got his own dose of fame during the climactic Assembly debate last week over a bill seeking to legalize same-sex marriage.

Mr. O’Donnell, the bill’s sponsor, who is gay, fielded more than an hour of questions from his colleagues, many of them hostile. Then he gave an impassioned and highly personal speech that was by turns comic (“I want a license that all of you have; some of you have had it two or three times”) and poignant (“All gay people, when they realize who they are, live in fear”). His companion, John Banta, stood nearby, and they embraced after Mr. O’Donnell, below, finished the speech.

Not everyone was convinced. Assemblyman Brian M. Kolb, a Republican from Canandaigua, said he felt personally “threatened” by the legislation; Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn, suggested including a provision to legalize incest.

But the bill passed, 85 to 61, making New York only the second state in which one or both houses of the legislature have approved same-sex marriage legislation without being compelled by a court to do so, according to Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights advocacy group. (In the first, California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.)

Though Gov. Eliot Spitzer supports the bill, Senate leaders declined to take it up. Still, gay rights advocates have hailed the Assembly vote as a huge symbolic victory.

“I mostly just thought about it as I was lying in bed at night,” Mr. O’Donnell, 47, said of his speech. “We walked on the floor with 79 votes. So to get to 85, people who were noes or maybes had to be swayed by the debate.” Afterward, he said, “some people told me that they couldn’t vote against me personally. Some people said they figured out that all the reasons to vote ‘no’ were political, and that they had decided to let their personal views dictate their vote.”

Boons for Consumers

At least two new pieces of law, should the governor approve them, are likely to make New Yorkers happy. One is the Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, introduced by Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris of Queens after the nationwide flight delays in February. The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. of Long Island, requires that airlines provide water, fresh air, food and clean bathrooms if loaded planes are kept on the ground at New York airports for more than three hours.

“Passengers have long complained about declining service on airlines, but this is ridiculous,” said Mr. Gianaris, above, noting that during the February delays, some passengers were stuck on planes at New York City-area airports for hours at a time. “People in prison camps don’t get treated this badly.”

The second piece of legislation eliminates the 4 percent sales tax the city charges on clothing and shoes costing more than $110. City officials and business leaders argued that the tax gave an advantage to retailers in neighboring states that do not levy such a charge. The bill, sponsored in the Assembly by Herman D. Farrell Jr. of Manhattan and in the Senate by Frank Padavan of Queens, passed on Thursday — and will soon take effect at a department store near you.

City Lobbyists Weigh In

New York City officials managed to stall legislation that would have made it harder for them to lease buildings for school space as part of the city’s five-year capital plan.

Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan of Queens persuaded her colleagues to approve a bill that would require leased school facilities to go through the same approval process as newly built schools — including approval by the City Council and the state’s stringent environmental review process. Community and environmental advocates, citing past cases in which the city leased buildings on polluted or contaminated ground, said the reviews were necessary.

But city lobbyists have insisted that the more than 30 leased facilities in their plan do not require Council or state environmental approval, and that the buildings in question have been carefully inspected for any potential danger to the students who would occupy them. They also said that a lengthy review process would make it impossible to close leasing deals with the property owners. And they persuaded Mr. Padavan, left, the Senate sponsor of the legislation, to hold off.

“Contrary to what has been asserted, the School Construction Authority already conducts thorough environmental reviews as set by the State Department of Environmental Conservation,” said Farrell Sklerov, a spokesman for the city.

Advocates for the bill thought they had reached a compromise in the waning days of the session. The deal would have exempted the leases from the state environmental review process and instead required an expedited review involving testing water, soil and air on the properties.

“We had worked out what I thought was a kind of sensible compromise,” said David Palmer, a staff attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

But the city eventually balked again. The sticking point? The bill’s supporters insisted that the City Council have a role in the approval process. “An environmental review process without a political process is almost worthless,” Mr. Palmer said.

Mr. Sklerov said the city “will continue to work with members of the Legislature and the environmental community to address any of their concerns.”